Seek and Ye Shall Find
by ivydevoss
Summary: What do you do when you've won all the battles and still something's missing?
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

_I love it when I wake up in the morning and don't have to save the world_, Dean thought.

It was eight o'clock on a perfect late September morning. Dean was standing by the coffee machine in Bobby's kitchen – no, _his_ kitchen – and focusing every fiber of his being on that ecstatic experience of taking the sanctified First Sip. Black, of course, the way all good coffee deserves to be drunk. Outside the window, a few red and gold leaves fluttered lazily down from the trees bordering the car lot, and the sunlight was almost blue with bright purity. Sam wasn't up yet, so Dean had the morning to himself. It was a good feeling, even if there was still an aching hole somewhere inside him that marked Bobby's absence.

Logically, it was to be expected that most hunters wouldn't make it to old age, but for years some part of Dean had clung like a child to the knowledge that somewhere, his substitute father-figure was manning the phones, doing research, drinking whiskey, something, anything. And now the simple fact that he wasn't anywhere, wasn't doing anything, still made Dean's throat close up at the most unexpected moments. He was dealing, sure. He'd had plenty of experience at grieving. But that didn't mean it got any easier.

Somehow, though, the fact that Bobby had left Singer Auto to the boys was a comfort. To be in the familiar space made Dean feel safe, although of course he wouldn't admit that to anyone. And it provided them a badly-needed center point around which everything else seemed to be changing these days. Together, the brothers and Castiel had achieved the unachievable: peace on Earth. Well, relatively speaking.

After having learned that Lucifer, as a former angel, still apparently had his grace, they had come up with their plan in a matter of days. Sam had discovered an old binding ritual that a nervous Castiel had confirmed would work to lock an angel's grace within a physical object. The set-up had taken weeks and had been one of the scariest jobs they'd ever done, but in the end the source of all Lucifer's power had been locked into the demon-killing knife (it was more durable than a human-made object), rendering him almost completely harmless. Castiel had then taken the knife and hidden it in Heaven – the one place where Lucifer would be utterly unable to come find it. Having their leader bridled in this fashion had terrified all the lower-ranking creatures of Hell, and since then, supernatural evil in the world had (knock on wood) effectively vanished.

Castiel, meanwhile, had ended the war in Heaven and established peace among the angels, gaining a new level of respect from all of his brothers and sisters. Those who had previously been leery of his relationship with the humans had changed their mind upon seeing that it hadn't caused him to "go soft", and many of them had even agreed to patrol the Earth and check that demon activity was staying at a minimum.

All of which meant, in a nutshell, that the Winchesters had hardly anything left to do. From time to time they would still get reports of an angry ghost or the like, but their lives had generally become pretty quiet. When they heard, after Bobby's death, that he had left them his house and land, they decided to temporarily make it their home base while they figured out what to do next. Dean had picked out a few of the less beat-up cars as "fixer-uppers" and was eventually planning to sell them, once he'd made them good as new again. Sam, meanwhile, seemed determined to avoid thinking about returning to school, preferring to spend his time cataloguing Bobby's immense and unorganized library.

In the past weeks, the two of them had settled into a routine, punctuated by ever more frequent visits from Castiel, who was still sorting out some heavenly bureaucracy but seemed to want to regularly check up on the brothers' emotional state, knowing how much Bobby had meant to the two of them. Sam had commented to Dean the other day that he was starting to get the impression Cas actually missed the gruff old man too, or else why would he constantly be dropping in on them at home? His visits had been becoming longer and longer, and although the angel really had nothing to do, he sure did a lot of it at Singer Auto these days.

Dean drained his cup, and heard the floorboards upstairs creaking in protest – Sam must be up. Dean refilled the percolator, not bothering to change the coffee grounds. Sam liked his coffee weak, for some inexplicable reason.

Soon his younger brother entered the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. "Morning, Dean. Coffee?"

"Brewing. Feel like frying up some eggs?"

Sam grumbled but obligingly opened the refrigerator and started digging around in it. Dean leaned against the counter, holding his still-warm coffee mug in both hands, and blatantly enjoyed doing nothing. He'd cooked enough meals for his brother when they were kids, he reasoned. It was time for Sammy to return the favor.

Just as the eggs were finished, a rustle of wings came from the study and Castiel appeared in the door to the kitchen.

"Hey, Cas," Dean greeted him. "If I didn't know you don't need to eat, I would accuse you of having suspiciously good timing."

Castiel narrowed his eyes at Sam's slightly crispy eggs and didn't comment. "Hello Dean, Sam."

Sam started scraping the eggs onto two plates, and Dean re-evaluated his opinion that his brother ought to be the new cook. Oh well, they were hot and greasy, and that was good enough for him. He dug in.

"Sure you don't want any, Cas?" Sam asked.

"No. Thank you." All the same, the angel advanced, pulled out a chair, and sat down with them at the table.

After Dean had worked his way through a couple of eggs, he decided it was time for some breakfast conversation, seeing as Castiel hadn't said another word and was just watching him eat with those unnervingly blue eyes. "So, Cas." Dean took a swig of orange juice. "How're things upstairs? Got the heavenly engines up and running again?"

"Yes." Cas ducked his head and gazed at the tabletop, seeming a bit lost.

"Well that's good, right?" Sam said encouragingly. "You should be proud of yourself. You averted what could have been a complete disaster."

"That's true. Everything's going very well in Heaven now. I don't..." Castiel paused and knitted his brows. Finally he said, seeming surprised by his own words, "I don't really know what to do with myself."

"Huh." Dean forked the last remains of his breakfast into his mouth and chewed reflectively. "They don't need you at the wheel as long as it's smooth sailing, right? That's great, take a load off."

"What do you want to do, Cas?" Sam asked.

The angel sighed, sounding very human, and sat back in his chair. "I don't know. That's the problem. I'm so accustomed to... working. Fighting. All that. I feel like something's missing. I need something... but I don't know what."

"Maybe you need a special someone in your life," Dean joked. "Any lady angels you got your eye on?"

Castiel met his eyes with a slightly vexed expression. "Dean. You know we do not actually have genders."

"Right, well, my point still stands."

"Or maybe you should just travel around, explore the world," Sam suggested. "I mean, if you haven't already seen it all."

"I've seen most of it," Castiel replied. "And I don't wish to initiate intimate relations with another angel, Dean," he added pointedly. "That is a very human idea of entertainment."

"Fine, whatever, I was just trying to help," Dean said with a shrug, gathering up his dishes and taking them to the sink. "If you want to make yourself useful, you could help Sam sort through all Bo– all the books here."

"Hey, that's an idea!" Sam brightened at this thought. "I could use your help identifying some of the older texts, Cas. I can recognize most of the languages, but I can't read them well enough to figure out what they're about."

Eventually Castiel acquiesced to this plan and trailed off after an enthusiastic Sam, while Dean was left to do the washing up. He didn't mind, though, and found himself humming some Zeppelin as he contemplated getting out to the garage and taking his first real look at that gorgeous old Mustang he'd discovered under a tarpaulin in the back of the barn the other day. The chassis was pretty beat up, but a peek at the engine had been promising, and Dean couldn't wait to get it out of that dusty back room into the light and really give it a once-over.

When he finally got to work, the first problem turned out to be that the hood latch was broken. It would be an easy fix, though. He prodded the latch assembly and peered closely, trying to figure out whether he wanted to replace the whole thing or not.

"Hello, Dean."

He jumped, and the hood fell shut. Damn, the mechanism for holding it open was evidently broken, too. Dean sighed, and swung around to face the unexpected angel. "Hi, Cas. What's up, did you get tired of Sam that fast? I thought you'd have fun geeking out with him."

"No... I just..." Castiel's hands hung by his sides, and he gave off a distinctly frumpy and useless aura that had somehow intensified since breakfast half an hour ago.

"You just what?" Dean turned back to the car and gingerly lifted the hood, hoping the sudden drop hadn't further damaged the latch assembly.

"I wanted to see what you were doing," Castiel finished, his voice sounding more gravelly than ever.

Dean raised an eyebrow to himself, and carefully let the hood down again before turning back around. "Okay, listen up dude, you need to find a hobby or something. This is just getting ridiculous. Do you seriously have nothing to do in Heaven? Or, you know, anywhere else?"

The angel seemed to deflate a bit. "No, I don't."

"Well look, it's not like we don't want you around – you're our friend, you're always welcome – but you have got to figure out something to do with yourself."

"I don't know what there is to do," Castiel confessed. "I've always had orders to follow. Now I don't anymore."

"All right." Dean pointed a finger at him. "In that case, I've got new orders for you: go have fun. I can't stand to see you moping around here anymore. I know the Earth isn't as big for you angels as it is for us, but it's still a pretty cool place full of all sorts of crazy shit. Go take some risks, meet some people, just look around. You can travel at the speed of, like, thought, it shouldn't be hard for you. And, who knows–" he shrugged and started pulling on his work gloves– "maybe you'll find out what it is you need. At the very least you can come back and tell us some awesome stories."

Castiel stared at him for a moment and then slowly nodded. "All right, Dean. If you think I should do this thing, I will."

"Cool." Dean returned his attention to the car, and when he next glanced up, the angel was gone.

At lunchtime Sam was peeved, and asked where Cas had gotten to. Dean briefly summarized the conversation they'd had in the garage, and Sam huffed that he could have just sent Castiel back inside to keep helping him with the books. But Dean knew that Sam understood why he'd done it. Everything was changing right now, not just for the brothers, but for Castiel too. Deep down inside, a tiny part of Dean felt bad about sending him away, but mostly he just hoped the experience would be a good one for Cas. He assumed the angel would continue to drop in from time to time and regale the Winchesters with tales of his travels and encounters. About this, however, Dean was very wrong.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Castiel didn't understand at first why Dean asked him to leave, but upon reflection, it became clear. He had realized very early on that the Winchester brothers felt differently towards him than he did towards them. The primary reason for this was, of course, that angels and humans feel in very different ways. Before he had lifted Dean Winchester's soul from Hell, Castiel would have said that angels didn't feel at all. Now he knew how wrong that was. Without even realizing it was happening, he had become a compass needle that always pointed to Dean. Sam claimed a small portion of this constant attention as well, primarily due to the strength of his brother's love for him. Such love was like a spotlight, and Castiel couldn't ignore it even if he'd wanted to. But Dean was still the brighter light, would always be the brightest light for Castiel. He was fascinated by the glowing brilliance of this human's soul. Being near it was like warming himself at a fire in the center of a bleak, cold universe.

It had quickly become evident, though, that the Winchesters primarily regarded Castiel as a tool rather than a friend. When they were in need of assistance, they called him, and the angel always eagerly flew to help his humans. He didn't even mind that they mostly ignored the common niceties of interaction, such as saying "Hello" to greet him or "Thank you" when he'd saved their lives.

Castiel accepted this as his due and tried not to overstep his bounds. It made sense to him that this relationship would be a rather one-sided one. After all, God had commanded the angels to love humans as they loved Him, and hadn't given the humans any such command regarding the angels. (Perhaps God hadn't meant that Castiel ought to focus so much of his love on one particular human being, but there certainly wasn't any commandment against it.) So Castiel accepted it as the natural order of things that he should feel this devotion to Dean, a devotion that was not returned. He didn't question or resent it; to do so would be tantamount to defying God's word. And to expect Dean to return his love would be prideful and ludicrous.

All the same, the casualness with which Dean told him to "go have fun" left Castiel rather at a loss. He understood the concept of "fun", of course; he had just never thought of it as something that could be had without Dean, and he thought it unlikely that he would succeed at having fun alone. But Dean's next words struck Castiel as more important: "Maybe you'll find out what it is you need."

He did need something, Castiel knew that. He needed something very much, but he didn't know what. It had become a constant dull throbbing sensation within him, this longing for something. He thought it was perhaps a relic of the time when he had lost so much of his Grace and almost become human. Such longing was not very angelic. Sometimes when he stood close to Dean and peered into the human's eyes, he felt like he was on the brink of understanding what it was he needed. The urge for this unidentifiable Something had been getting stronger lately, and as a result he had been spending more and more time around the Winchesters, trying as unobtrusively as possible to gaze at Dean and meditate upon what this Something could be. It appeared that he wasn't very good at being unobtrusive, though.

So Dean asked Castiel to leave. And disappointment sifted gently down over him, and he complied with Dean's wishes, as he always did. Sometimes, Castiel thought as he winged silently away from Singer Auto, he wished he had been a guardian angel rather than a warrior angel. He had never understood the appeal of the guardians' job before, but now it seemed like it would be pure bliss to be assigned to one tiny fiery foolish human, and to follow them, invisible but constantly present, throughout the entire brief course of their lives, comforting and protecting them whenever possible. Of course, the downside would be the inability to actually interact with the human in question. Guardian angels were forbidden from taking vessels or making themselves known to their humans in any way. On second thought, Castiel decided, being a guardian angel might not be such an ideal job after all.

Paying no attention to where he was going, Castiel flew quite a distance while wrapped up in his thoughts, and when he finally stopped ruminating and looked around, he found himself over a huge dark forest somewhere in central Europe just at nightfall. He came down in the middle of the forest, savoring the live silence of the wilderness, the kind of false silence that quickly resolves itself into a thousand different sounds upon closer listening. Wind brushing lightly through pine needles, leaves lifting and settling on the forest floor, distant footfalls of prey and predator doing their slow and deadly dance. Castiel watched, invisible, as a fox pounced on a mouse, shaking it like a dog and then playing with it like a cat, before finally killing it with a single squeeze of its jaws.

He mused on the strange reaction humans have to death: although it is one of the most normal, unextraordinary things, they let themselves be wounded by it every time, letting it break them over and over, painfully rebuilding themselves only to be broken again. Some humans would cry upon seeing a dead bird by the side of the road, while others would give each other high fives after shooting a deer for sport; some would give orders for thousands of innocent people to be destroyed by bombs, and still others would refuse to let the hospitalized body of a loved one die, even after that person's spirit was long gone. Humans were so unpredictable. Castiel never knew how to react. He knew humans gave each other "condolences" upon hearing about a death, but how to behave? Ought one to pretend a grief one did not actually feel?

Upon hearing of Bobby's death, Castiel had been oddly affected. Death had never mattered to him before. It still didn't, really – he knew Bobby's soul was in Paradise, reunited with his wife in perfect bliss, far happier than he could ever have been on Earth – and yet, seeing Dean and Sam's sadness made him unexpectedly disconsolate. The lack of the old man in their lives was almost tangible, and Castiel wished there was something he could do to ease their pain.

At least the brothers were moving on, turning their thoughts toward the future and what would come next. Castiel wondered if one or both of them would find a mate. It seemed a common human behavior, especially at the age they were approaching. Dean had even made the comment to Castiel that morning about "lady angels". Castiel ruffled his feathers at the memory, inexplicably irritated by the thought of it, and left the darkening forest behind him, flying east through the night.

***


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Castiel arrived in Japan at daybreak, just as two young people standing on a bridge were kissing each other for the first time. They had been out all night, wandering the city, too buoyed up on the energy of new love to go into a club or restaurant. Compelled to remain outside under the moon, ignoring parental curfews in the back of their minds, they had let their feet lead them to this bridge at the edge of the city as the final hours of the night passed, and now they were standing entranced by each other, unaware of the plastic bags blowing down the street or the homeless man slowly waking up in a telephone booth nearby.

Castiel landed close to the young lovers, close enough to see the sparkle in the boy's eyes as he pulled away from the girl and gazed at her, disbelieving joy radiating from his beautiful young face. _Humans are such miracles_, Castiel thought. He'd had that thought many times before, but each time it felt like a new revelation. Academically, he noted the distance between the couple's faces – about four inches – and wondered why Dean never let him stand that close. Perhaps different people had different definitions of "personal space". Apparently the personal space needs of these two young people were practically negligible.

The boy told the girl he didn't want to go home. (Castiel could understand them, of course; all human communication was comprehensible to angels, regardless of language.) The girl whispered that she didn't want to go home either. But then she added that her parents would be angry if they woke up and found her bed empty. The boy told her not to worry about her parents, but his words had little effect; although the girl smiled and kissed him again, Castiel could still sense her worry. He flew away slowly, pondering human interactions. How could two people ever maintain a relationship, when every person wants such different things?

As the city came to life and the streets began to fill with people, Castiel allowed himself to zero in on the couples and peer into their minds.

A pair of teenagers in the tram on their way to school were holding hands: the boy was hoping that everyone around him was taking notice of how attractive his girlfriend was, and the girl was thinking with a sharp hatred of how much she wished her father would leave her and her mother and never come back.

A middle-aged couple running a fruit store were rapidly setting out their wares in preparation to unlock the doors: the woman was trying to convince herself that the pain in her left side was nothing to do with her one remaining kidney, and the man was planning to have sex with the young woman who came in to assist them in the afternoons.

Two girls around fifteen years old were walking down the street holding hands: when Castiel looked closer, he saw that the girl with the braces was trying to forget a boy who had hurt her and was feeling grateful for her best friend, and the best friend in question was in love with the girl with the braces and not ever planning to tell her, knowing her love would not be returned.

Castiel swept skywards in sudden misery, soaring out over the Pacific Ocean. Once the coast had vanished behind him, he flew down low over the water, staring into its murky depths. It reminded him of the dark forest, full of invisible life. Heading southward, Castiel approached a string of islands and passed over a fishing trawler, its nets floating empty in the water around it while a small crew sheltered themselves from the punishing noonday sun, gathered under a makeshift tent on the deck as they drank beer and shared stories. They had been on the water since four in the morning and still hadn't caught anything worth taking home, so they were drowning their fears in alcohol and bravado. None of them knew how to do anything but fish. If there were no more fish to be caught, their lives would become meaningless.

Castiel stayed with the boat for longer than he had intended, feeling the fishermen's insecurity as if it were his own. When he reached the islands the ship had come out from, he saw that they were beautiful, with white sand beaches and egrets and mango trees. Castiel marveled that people could live in such a paradise and still be so caught up in their worries as the poor fishermen were. But he could also understand them. If your entire life has been devoted to a single thing and then you no longer have that thing, it must feel like your ship has capsized.

Castiel wondered for the first time what he would do if Dean decided to find a woman and get married. Perhaps this woman wouldn't know about the existence of the supernatural world. Dean would probably prefer that she didn't – he hated drawing innocent people into the life he'd been brought up in. In that case, Castiel wouldn't be able to visit Dean anymore. He would have to spend eternity doing something else. He wondered what that something else might be. He couldn't think of anything else he'd want to do. He remembered the last words Dean had said to him before Castiel had left: "At the very least you can come back and tell us some awesome stories." Did Dean really want him to come back? Or would he prefer to be left alone so he could get on with his life, try to get back to normal? Castiel knew there was a part of Dean that resented all things supernatural for stealing the childhood he'd never had, taking away the innocence he'd never been allowed to know. Castiel had never thought about it before, but now he suddenly realized that he himself was a "supernatural creature". Maybe Dean didn't like having him around. After all, he was a constant reminder of the life Dean had finally been able to escape.

Forlorn, Castiel winged his way eastward, crossing more ocean until the long curving west coast of the Americas materialized ahead of him. Suddenly shy, he veered south and eventually came down over a mountaintop in Chile. It was so high that the air here was thin and cold, although of course that was no matter to an angel. Castiel had the irrational thought that he ought to stay right here forever, just sit down in the snow and silence and never move again. Heaven wouldn't miss him – he was no longer needed there. And he doubted he would be missed anywhere else either. Castiel let himself float downwards, closing his eyes, feeling the humming vibrancy of the Earth that had become so familiar to him. He settled on the ground and wrapped himself in his wings, trying to stifle his thoughts, as if that could work. He tried to feel the cold, simply wanting to be able to feel anything at all. But all he could feel was that steady ache within him, the longing for a Something he didn't have. He opened his eyes again, wide, hoping against hope to somehow see the two green sparks of Dean's eyes, that sight which always brought him so close to the edge of understanding. But of course he was alone. His eyes slipped shut again and he folded his wings tighter around him to block out the world.

***


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

After two weeks, Dean commented to Sam one day that he hoped Cas was having some awesome adventures.

After a month, Sam suggested praying to him, just to check in, but Dean said "Why?" and Sam didn't really have a good reason why. So they didn't.

After two months, Dean had almost finished work on the Mustang and Sam had organized all of Bobby's old books by subject matter. Now he just had to put them all back on the shelves, labeled correctly this time. He took his time doing so, sometimes getting caught up in reading for hours.

One night, almost four months after Castiel had left, Dean sat on the edge of his bed and closed his eyes and opened his mouth to speak to the empty room, but then thought better of it and closed his mouth and went to bed.

After six months, Sam met a girl named Laurie who knitted and wore combat boots and sassed Dean back, and evenings when Dean got in from the garage he would often find her sprawled out on the couch declaiming her views on politics and religion while Sam drank a beer and laughed and argued. Sam had told her what they used to do. Dean hadn't been present for that conversation, but apparently Laurie had taken it remarkably well. She hadn't even asked for proof of the existence of angels and demons and so on, which made Dean suspect that she maybe didn't entirely believe in them after all, but he didn't say anything about it to Sam. He was just glad to see his little brother happy.

Sometimes Dean considered getting himself back in the scene too, at least just for a hook-up from time to time, but for some reason he never followed through on that idea. He felt like he had unfinished business. It was probably the house, he decided. They still hadn't come to an agreement about what to do with it. It was an unspoken law that they wouldn't sell it. They couldn't.

It was more than a year since the late September day when Castiel had disappeared out of their lives – fourteen months and twenty-six days ago, actually, though Dean wasn't counting – when he returned, just as suddenly. It was barely five in the afternoon, but the sky was getting dark already, clouds rolling in from the west. Snow blanketed the car lot and Dean had given up shoveling the driveway when Sam had shouted out the front door that the radio was predicting another big snowstorm that night. "Just in time for Christmas!" Sam added cheerily, before ducking back into the warm house.

"Easy for you to say," Dean grumbled, leaning in exhaustion on his snow shovel. "I'm the one out here slaving away while you frolic by the fire with your lady love." But no sooner had he mumbled this complaint than Laurie emerged from the house, waving goodbye to Sam and plodding through the drifts towards her Camry.

"Bye, Dean!"

"You heading out?"

"Yup, gotta pick up my sister and get to the airport. We're going home to Maine for the holidays."

"All right, well, see you." Dean wedged the shovel firmly into some hard-packed snow and lifted a hand as she climbed into the car.

"Merry Christmas!" she called.

"Yeah, you too," he replied grudgingly as she slammed the car door and started the engine. Normally he liked Christmas okay, but this would be the second one in a row with just him and Sam in Bobby's house, and it didn't feel right. Dean sighed as the sound of Laurie's engine faded into the distance, and he stared up at the darkening sky. A few tiny flurries were already spiraling downward, and the smoke from the chimney dissipated rapidly in the rising wind. Dean shivered and turned towards the house. It was really getting cold out here.

He almost didn't hear the fluttering sound behind him, and when he did, there was a part of him that instantly assumed it was just the wind. But another part of him was so conditioned to that sound that it could never be mistaken. Dean was turning around before his brain had even caught up with his body, and his eyes widened at the sight.

Just as if he'd never left, Castiel was standing there, too close, with his disheveled coat and hair, and those unblinking eyes focused on his own. There was a moment of total silence.

"Hello, Dean."

"Cas..." Dean breathed, almost scared to speak aloud in case it was just a mirage.

Castiel's eyes dropped briefly to Dean's mouth before lifting again. "I'm back," he added, unnecessarily, in that rough voice Dean hadn't heard in so long.

"Yeah, I can see that." Dean could feel a smile spreading across his face. There was another pause, and the silence felt warmer than the house could possibly be, no matter how many logs Sam might have put on the fire. Finally Dean cleared his throat. "So, did you, uh, have lots of adventures?"

Castiel tipped his head slightly to one side, considering. "No. But I learned some things. Important things."

"Oh yeah?" Dean wondered, distantly, why his heart seemed to be pounding so fast. "Like what?"

"I'm not sure how to explain most of them," Castiel admitted. "But the most important one is also the simplest."

"And that is...?" For some reason, Dean's voice had become a whisper again.

"I found out what I need," Castiel said solemnly. "And that's why I came back."

It took him a moment, but then Dean got it. "Oh." He took a long breath of crystalline cold air. "Oh, okay."

_~ fin ~_


End file.
